Finding out what went wrong with “Holmes and Watson,” Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly‘s half-baked take on the famous characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, doesn’t require a brilliant deductive mind. In all honesty, all it would take to solve the case of why this comedy doesn’t hit the mark is to just take a look at whose name isn’t listed under “director.” The missing man is not Professor Moriarty this time around. It’s Adam McKay.
The powerhouse comedy filmmaker behind previously successful pairings of Ferrell and Reilly, in “Step Brothers” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” has taken a breather from traditional studio comedies as of late to focus on ferocious, Oscar-ready political satire, and “Holmes and Watson” makes you realize what the comedy world misses in McKay’s absence.
The filmmaker’s sterling ability to wring genius out of rags drenched in stupidity is nowhere to be found in his old buddies Ferrell and Reilly’s latest team-up. While the film isn’t nearly half as horrid the marketing has promised, it’s still a wayward circus act that needed a sharp mind like McKay’s to iron out the wrinkles. By the end of ‘Holmes and Watson,’ you’re left with the same sour taste in your mouth you have watching a mid-2000s Adam Sandler flick.
What frustrates is that there’s something here with the premise. Writer/director Etan Cohen (a Mike Judge veteran who directed Ferrell in 2015’s abysmal “Get Hard” and definitely no Adam McKay) finds a clever port of entry into the Sherlock canon by taking a wry look at what brilliance really meant in Victorian England. It, of course, was a time where medical understanding was paltry, and social diseases like misogyny, racism, and classism ran rampant like the plague. Cohen and company want to slap on a revisionist tint onto the famed literary sleuths, but the results are varied.
It’s kind of funny the first time Reilly’s Dr. Watson offers Ferrell’s Sherlock cocaine casually as if it were a bonbon. The fiftieth time, you’re ready to take a cannonball to the face. The social commentary isn’t nearly as acidic as it should’ve been, either. The message was right, but the vehicle wasn’t.
So Armando Iannucci-level satire, this is not. Rather, “Holmes and Watson” is a movie that delights in how dumb it is, dallying its stupidity around like someone showing off a fine candle. We all know the pitch for this one at Sony HQ was “‘Step Brothers’ with Sherlock Holmes” but the difference between that Ferrell/Reilly collaboration and this one is McKay’s vision and restraint from the director’s chair.
Rather than be judicious with its jokes, the film takes its stupidest ham hocks of humor and chucks them at a big target mark like someone throwing an endless supply of axes. Sometimes, the ax flies out of range and hits a poor bystander. Other times, the ax blade falls off the handle and lands on your foot. However, if you throw enough axes, you’re going to hit the target at some point. As the deluge of dumbness flows down from Mt. “Holmes and Watson,” erosion eventually takes place. This film works far too hard not to grab you at some point and make you giggle.
It dares you not to laugh at Reilly taking an old-timey gun and firing it aimlessly in the air to protect himself from a horde of bees. It begs you not to shamefully smirk at Lauren Lapkus‘ character effectively being a person who was raised by feral cats (she’s splendid with what she’s given, by the way). It challenges you not to guffaw at the go-for-broke lunacy of watching Ferrell and Reilly attempt to sell the stupidest musical number Alan Menken has ever written (yes, this is a thing). You will cave eventually, you will feel terrible for it, and you will only regret it slightly.
But that’s always been Ferrell and Reilly’s combo shtick. They are the gifted class clowns trying to get you to laugh in the middle of the history exam with the crassest of comedy. This time, though, something’s missing. The mess is just a mess, not a place. The ruse lacks in the focused mirth that made it special before. “Holmes and Watson” will probably make you smile, and occasionally, it earns that goodwill. But it’s nowhere near where it should be with the company present. Forgive the pun, but it’s elementary to find what’s off with this movie. It’s being solved by detectives missing a key clue. [C-]